Good Research Paper On Living In The Country Versus Living In The City

Introduction

These days, quite a lot of people, after living in big cities and having hectic life schedules for many years, move toward the country sides in search of fresh air and peace. But still, a lot more could never think about leaving a city that offers a plethora of state-of-the-art services ranging from diverse variants of entertainments to sophisticated medical facilities. With both country life and city life having a wide-range of advantages and disadvantages, it is indeed difficult for someone to make a choice as to where to live with family and dear ones permanently. A professional couple having lucrative jobs and living in a flat with modern amenities and working late hours in the office does take time out occasionally to live in a country for a couple of days, breathing fresh air and listening to birds chirruping deep in the woods. Similarly, an old husband and wife living in their traditional house overlooking a beautiful pond in a scenic village too sometimes depend on their children living in a crowded city to avail a medical help their village is not able to provide. Thus, both a country side village with limited access and a city with skyscrapers and traffic-filled busy roads have their own inherent advantages and disadvantages. To someone enslaved into a city lifestyle driven by intrinsic self-actualization needs like growing a dream career across a corporate ladder, taking a break from the busy work hours and relaxing in a green village for a few days would be a dream. Similarly, for a young country woman who was born and brought up in a village, and who had faint but sweet memories about visiting a museum and a cinema hall in a city during her school days, getting married to a professional living in a skyscraper and dwelling in a city could be a dream which hasn’t come true yet. Hence the choice of choosing to live in a village or a city depends upon the perception of the individual about life, and of course, his or her expectations from the outside world.

Advantages of Living in Countries

Country sides are known for beautiful landscapes with streams and rivulets, and animals and birds coexisting with the inhabitants. The fresh oxygen freely supplied by the green trees and shrubs is pure and healthy for the human body unlike the polluted oxygen available in the city air. Also, the water available in the country is pure and free from contamination. In the countryside one can afford to own big farms since land price is cheap compared with cities. Similarly, a country dweller has access to endless supply of natural fruits and vegetables. One can rear in his farm birds, animals besides practicing a variety of cultivation including natural or organic farming. The purity of air, water and food available in the countries gives them healthy and long life. Another major advantage the country dwellers enjoy which also keeps their body fit is the amount of physical exercises they unknowingly do every day by way of walking long distances. The calm and soothing atmosphere in the countryside motivates many people settled in big cities to come often to green villages and relax. Villages are not crowded like cities. Mostly people in a village are friendly and know each other. People living in the country sides never have to bother about their privacy or noise pollution ("Advantages of Country Life over City Dwelling”). Houses surrounded with nature gives a soothing comfort to the disturbed mind, and hence country sides are havens for creators like artists, writers, movie makers, thinkers and philosophers. J.R.R. Tolkien, the famous author of the popular novel Lord of the rings got inspiration for most of his novels from the Lancashire countryside, mainly the Ribble Valley (“Famous Authors Who Found Inspiration”). Some of the names Tolkien used in his novel Lord of the rings, like Shire Lane are common names found in the Lancashire countryside.

Advantages of Living in Cities

Disadvantages of Living in Both Countries and Cities
Even though living in a countryside village and a city have many inherent advantages, both do have a lot of disadvantages as well. In villages people may live in peace surrounded with family and friends. If someone in a countryside falls sick and requires an urgent hospitalization in a nearby town, it would be difficult to take the person to the hospital on time due to the poor conditions of the road, communication networks in addition to the long distance. Normally countryside inhabitants have a healthy life style, which does not warrant emergency situations frequently. In the case of city dwellers, the air, water and food pollution and their sedentary life styles cause a variety of diseases; the sound pollution continues to disturb the mental peace of the elders. Also, though cities do have well established traffic connectivity, mostly the roads are filled with heavy traffic thus wasting one’s time and vehicle fuel. The fact that cities are heavily crowded contrary to thinly populated villages, chances are one comes across so many strangers every day, and hence the possibility of theft and other anti social activities happening in the neighborhoods is highly likely. Villages do not have adequate opportunities for quality higher education, and hence the possibility of the children being denied good opportunities available for similar children born in cities is very high. Cities are known for the operations of antisocial elements apart from providing a wide range of opportunities to young ones to spoil their future by drug addiction. City children have to overcome these challenges unlike the countryside children who do not have such threats. Villages have limited entertainment opportunities and are sometimes boring. The fact that cities have unlimited entertainment opportunities spoil the time and money of aspiring young men and women. Thus, mostly an advantage one enjoys by being in a country or city turns out to be a disadvantage if it is not properly put to use.

Conclusion

Even as a country dweller finds himself close to nature and god, a city dweller finds himself at the threshold of self actualization due to a number of possibilities available to him in the cities. If life in the country goes slow at a snail’s pace, life goes pretty fast in city which makes the people too to be in a hurry always. A country boy has got the whole countryside available to him to run and play while a city boy has got very limited space around his premises to play with friends, and most of the time he has to limit his play inside the house before the TV or computer. Nevertheless, people living both in the countryside and cities are accustomed to the lifestyles shaped by the surroundings. To them it is more of a personal choice than a compulsion to cope with the circumstances. However, once in a while most of the city dwellers enjoy a few days out in a country; similarly, people living in the countries visit cities often for many reasons. Thus, people living both in cities and countries live a happy and fulfilling life according to their choices and perceptions about living on this earth.

Works Cited

"Advantages of Country Life over City Dwelling." Country Life. 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://www.countrylife.org.uk/advantages-of-country-life-over-city-dwelling.html>.
Daniel C. Tsui - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 13 Mar 2015. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1998/tsui-bio.htm
"Famous Authors Who Found Inspiration in the Lancashire Countryside." Brick House Cottages. 6 Aug. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://www.brickhousecottages.co.uk/APBlog/?Famous-authors-who-found-inspiration-in-the-Lancashire-countryside&bId=645>.